Ken Hardison

North Carolina Personal Injury attorney Ken Hardison and President of the Personal Injury Lawyers Marketing and Management Association interviewed Gerry about why video for lawyers is so important. When the audio podcast is available I’ll post it here.

TECHNOLAWYER REVIEW BY GERRY OGINSKI

YouLaw: The Dolan Law Firm, Motorcycle Accident Attorneys in San Francisco, California
By Gerry Oginski | Thursday, September 25, 2008

Watch the Video

TechnoScore: 4.0
1 = Lowest Possible Score; 5 = Highest Possible Score
The Opening Reversal Gets This Video Off to a Good Start

This video by The Dolan Law Firm immediately commands your attention because the client makes no bones that she does not like lawyers. This unexpected statement makes for an unusually refreshing client testimonial. Her attitude changes once she starts describing how Chris Dolan, her San Francisco-based accident lawyer, was able to help her in a car v. motorcycle case. She looks at the camera straight-on, and even goes so far to say that she never imagined that she would ever become friends with a lawyer.

So far so good. As a potential client searching for an attorney online, I would then expect to see her attorney on camera, either in a split screen or immediately following her comments to discuss the challenges and outcome of her case. Such an appearances would bolster his credibility.

But Chris Dolan does not appear in the video — a head scratcher.

In that same department, why does a law firm that spends so much time and effort to produce a quality testimonial allow the videographer to advertise itself extensively before the video starts and after the video finishes? Giving free advertising to the videographer distracts the viewer from your message. Tell the videographer to take a hike. If the videographer offers you a discount, list its Web address in the sidebar text, not in the video.

To read the rest of my review, click on the title of this post. Enjoy those videos!

By Gerry Oginski, Esq.

As the internet has taken hold and more lawyers have recognized the benefits of marketing online, one marketing tool is defining the standard of advertising on the web. Online videos. It is the newest, hottest tool available for lawyers to communicate their message on the web. Admittedly, attorney videos are one-way communication, but they offer significant advantages over every other advertising medium.

Most attorneys have failed to understand the true value of video and how it can improve their chances of a potential client calling them over their competitor. Legal marketing experts agree that the sooner you start to see the value of video marketing, the sooner you’ll see the results. Legal marketing expert Larry Bodine (www.lawmarketing.com) recently commented that putting video on your website is “…a great opportunity to present how you look, how you talk, what you’re like, and make yourself more attractive to clients. It’s a great business-getting technique.” The key to encouraging a website visitor to call you, is with video. Static websites and fancy graphics just do not cut it any more, and fail to distinguish yourself from your competitor. Tom Foster, CEO of Foster Web Marketing (www.fosterwebmarketing.com) says “If you get in early by putting video on your website, you can take advantage of good search placement on the video search engines.”

If you thought that internet video was for the MTV crowd, you’d be wrong. If you thought that video for your website was only for geeky techno-lawyers, you’d be wrong too. If you thought that putting a video of yourself online was useless, you’d definitely be wrong. In fact, Google thinks you’re so wrong that they recently paid one billion dollars to buy a video sharing site called YouTube. To give you an idea about the reach that internet video has, consider a ten minute video clip by comedian and ventriloquist Jeff Dunham; his video has been viewed over 60 million times. Most attorney videos are viewed in the hundreds of times, but it shows the potential that video has. Plus, if done correctly, does not cost you anything more if it is watched 100 times or 100,000 times.

Pre-historic times

In the pre-internet age, lawyer advertising was limited to television, radio, yellow pages, billboards, newspapers and magazines. Since the 1970′s when the Supreme Court of the United States decided that lawyers could advertise (Bates v. State Bar of Arizona), the general public has been bombarded with lawyer ads. Every jurisdiction in every state has their own peculiar set of ethical rules regarding what lawyers can and cannot say in their advertisements. Cheesy lawyer advertisements have been the bane of late-night talk shows and comedy shows for decades.

Lawyers trying to get a foothold into their particular market often looked upon lawyer advertising as a necessary evil. Many felt it was beneath them to advertise. Not many lawyers wanted to be in the same category as a salesman looking to pitch his latest slicer and dicer. Traditional advertising is costly. Lawyers often complained that the cost to advertise in each medium were prohibitive. The ads themselves were not able to be viewed repeatedly for the same cost, and unless a potential client was looking for an attorney at that moment, they would likely ignore the daily messages they were inundated with.

The new millennia- The Internet

With the dawn of the internet, attorneys began to develop web sites as an ancillary way to “get their name” into the public eye. Many New York lawyers felt, and still do, that they’d rather busy themselves practicing law, rather than marketing their services. The common thinking was “Hire a marketing person to do all that advertising for us.” The problem was that most marketing people had no experience with developing web sites for lawyers. Many did not know what a website could be used for and how it could be advantageous to a law firm. The early lawyer web sites consisted of only a few pages and held little information besides your law firm name, and the type of law that you practiced. It gave no real information and did nothing to distinguish you from your competitor down the street. It was analogous to a downed pilot in a war movie who was obligated to give only his name, rank and serial number. Those bland websites did little to encourage a potential client to call.

With the advent of interesting and focused lawyer websites, it is simply not enough anymore to have static websites with fancy graphics and photos. How does your website with nice pictures of tall buildings and cityscapes and mean-looking lawyers with their arms folded across their chests like the Knights of King Arthur’s Court preparing for battle, differentiate you from your colleagues? The reality is that your website is probably not very different from your main competitors. Maybe your website uses different colors; maybe you have a different template and design; maybe your font is different. Put aside the design and focus on the substance. What is it that you are trying to tell a prospective client who is searching for an attorney online? What information do you offer that your competitor does not? How can a prospective client make an intelligent choice about whether to pick up the phone and call you instead of the biggest law firm on the block? Does your website distinguish you and your firm from every other law firm practicing in your specialty? If it does, you have a distinct advantage. If it doesn’t, you need to look critically at what you are doing in order to improve your online presence.

Google- Why You Need To Know How It Works

Today’s internet has exploded with creative and useful ways to educate and inform millions of viewers. A “Google search” has made it commonplace to search for anything and anybody with a click of a button. Google has cornered the market on creating the easiest and arguably most powerful search tool on the internet today. Why is this important for lawyers looking to market their services and their law firm? It’s not only important, it’s vital for a lawyer to understand how Google searches work. Only by understanding the concepts of how a search engine works, can a law firm take advantage of it with video marketing.

Typically, a potential client will do a Google search if they are looking for an attorney online. Obviously there are many search engines, but Google’s popularity cannot and should not be ignored. The results that pop up on Google will likely determine if your website will be clicked on. If you are on page 10 of a Google search result, it is unlikely your website will be found. The same reasoning applies if you had a full page ad in the yellow pages and were at page 30. The yellow pages representative always managed to explain that even if you were at page 30, “just one client” would be enough to pay for your ad. Unfortunately, the yellow pages rep never explained why a potential client would call your firm, 30 pages from the front, instead of the other 29 lawyers in front of you. However, if your website comes up on page one of Google, there is a good chance that a website viewer will click on your site. Unfortunately, with all the competition today, that alone does not get a potential viewer to call you.
Once a viewer actually clicks on your site, what do they find? Is the website static and filled with fancy graphics or flash media that does nothing to differentiate your site from all the others? What information do you provide that will cause a viewer to want to pick up the phone and ask you questions? The answer according to Gerry Oginski, a medical malpractice and personal injury attorney in Great Neck, is video. Oginski has created over 100 educational video tips on medical malpractice and personal injury law in New York. He posts them on his website, and uploads them to video sharing sites such as YouTube, Google Video, Yahoo and AOL. His video blog is so informative that potential clients call him telling him that they’re watching a video of him right now and they have questions.
Benefits of Video For The Practicing Attorney

Millions of viewers go online every day to watch video clips about every topic imaginable. From ‘how-to’ videos where you can learn to build a house, to bizarre videos of no-talent singers pretending to be Tom Cruise in their dining room. From sports to politics to technology, there’s a video online to steal a few moments of your time.

Video allows the attorney not only to convey their marketing message, but allows viewers to see, hear, and determine whether the lawyer inspires confidence and knows what he is talking about. Video allows for more than a 30 second commercial that screams at you. Online video gives lawyers the opportunity to explain to viewers how they are different from every other lawyer who is competing with them.

By Gerry Oginski, Esq.

Problem:

You have a website, but there’s no way for you to personally interact and connect with potential clients who visit your site. Visitors to your site want answers to their problems. That’s why they’ve done a search and have found your website. If you remain faceless and impersonal they’ll go elsewhere for legal help.

It’s a proven fact that websites with photos are more likely to get a prospective client to read what you have on your site. Your nice, smiling, photo creates a basic comfort level for readers. But it has limited value. The reader wants to know who this smiling person is. Can this lawyer help me? What does he sound like? Does he look and sound confident? Can I trust him?

Unfortunately, a photo of you in front of a wall of legal books tells your potential client nothing, except that you dress well, and like to stand in front of a law library.

If you continue to use your website to advertise your services without more personal interaction, you’re losing out to your competitors. The smart ones have already started to use video on their websites. In fact, your colleagues are hard at work to get more clients with the use of video.

You’ve chosen to let the world know what you do and how well you do it. The problem is that everyone else is doing it too.

So what can you do to improve your presence online and distinguish yourself from your competitors?

Proposed Solution:

The answer is video.

Why? Because your website readers can see and hear you. Just like jurors, website visitors are fascinated by short video clips of things they’re interested in. Just look at the popularity of Youtube. Web visitors love to watch video clips. Viewers can quickly evaluate your manner, your appearance and see that you’re an engaging, caring lawyer who wants to help solve their problems.

Compare that to a soundless, faceless website with nice graphics, but no personal interaction. Nothing to make your site a “sticky site” allowing a visitor to stick around are read everything you have to offer them.

Short, personal video clips are the newest and best thing to improve lawyers’ websites and convert website visitors to prospective clients who email or pick up the phone to talk to you.

Don’t just take my word for this. Do a search on your own for ‘website video for lawyers’. Look at the quality of the videos. Importantly, listen to what those attorneys have to say. If you were a prospective client, would you hire that lawyer? Are those lawyers telling you how great they are and why a person should hire them? Or, are those lawyers giving prospective clients information they need to know to answer their questions?

Think about it. Does a website visitor want to hear what an amazing lawyer you are and how important and prestigious your firm is? Or do you think they’d prefer getting information about their problem before they pick up the phone and call?

Answer their unspoken question, and they’re likely to call. Tell them about how great you and your partners are, and you’re likely to turn them off.

Why should you listen to me? Before deciding about whether video is right for you, I want to share with you some facts about myself and my own website. I’ve been in practice for over 19 years as a New York Medical Malpractice & Personal Injury trial lawyer. My website, www.oginski-law.com consistently ranks #1 on Google, or on page 1when someone searches for ‘medical malpractice lawyer in Brooklyn’, or Queens, or New York. In the last few months, I’ve put 70 video clips online and have done it all myself. I’m amazed to say that those video clips have been watched over 20,000 times. (That’s not a misprint).

Those video clips have generated a lot of inquiries by prospective clients who have seen my instructional videos. Isn’t that what you want? Interested potential clients with pressing questions that only you can answer?

HERE’S WHAT I LEARNED

In the months it took me to research and learn everything about video, lighting, sound, pre-production, shooting video, post-production editing and putting video online, I am now very capable and adept to teach others about this valuable tool.

I did my research and purchased all of the equipment needed to create video and put it online. One might think that anyone can do it even with their little video-cam hooked up to their computer. That’s true, but before you put a video online using your tiny video-cam or your camcorder, look carefully at the quality of those videos. Look at how well your scene is lit, and ask yourself the same question I asked earlier: “Would a prospective client viewing this video think that this is the type of lawyer they want?” Or would they quickly say “This video stinks. I can’t see anything. The sound is horrible and it looks like my 5 year old took this video and posted it online without any forethought.”

I don’t think that’s the type of personal impression you want to make for new potential clients. That’s why I’m offering to create a series of video clips for you.

Here’s what I offer:

• Pre-production
• Strategy planning
• Video shoot at your office (one hour of video)
• Post production (includes editing, adding background music, and subtitles)
• Posting your finished video clips to Google Video & Youtube
• I provide the “embed code” so you can give it to your web designer and it will appear automatically on your own website”

COST

Appropriately marketing your assets are priceless. As a practicing attorney in the trenches every day, I know that your website is only one part of your marketing and advertising plan, and yet it’s probably the best medium and best return on your investment so far. I know when I did my videos I didn’t want to spend a lot of money, but I wanted a good final product I would be proud of. Little did I realize the amount of time needed to get a good video shoot (there were many re-takes and do-overs), and the amount of time needed to edit the video, put in the background music and titles, and then start to upload the finished product. It’s not simply clicking a button to upload. For each video you have to provide a title, give a description of each video and provide keywords so the search engines recognize the importance of your video.

All of this takes a tremendous amount of time. With practice, I’ve learned to whittle down some of the time, but you just can’t cut corners if you want to do video the right way. Before I decided to offer my video services I did a lot of research on companies that offer these video services. There are only a handful of companies that do a good job. A few of those companies actually create a branded video player to watch your video in, like a pop-up, on your own website.

Hosting a video means that a company puts your video on their ‘servers’ and makes it accessible to anyone who clicks on your video link. Importantly, the longer a video, the more ‘bandwidth’ is used up to play that video on a given website. The more videos and the longer your videos are, the more expensive it is to ‘host’ your videos.

If you choose to hire me to create your video, I’m going to show you a way to host your videos that won’t incur any cost to you. It’s a little secret those other companies don’t want you to know about.

Each of those companies that create lawyer videos limits the video clip to a maximum of 2 minutes. Why only 2 minutes? Because of the limited capacity of their servers and the cost associated with hosting all those videos.

In my opinion, 2 minutes is not enough time to get your informational message out. I believe that you’re better off with a 4-6 minute video clip. The reason? If a prospective client has searched for your services, they must have a pressing question they need answered. Most will gladly sit for 4-6 minutes if their question is being answered.

What do those web design companies that offer video production services charge for all this? I’m shocked to tell you that one company charges $26,000 for these services. By the way, that price goes up to $30,000 starting in January! I’m sure that if you use that company you’ll be pleased with their services. It looks like a nice product. But $30,000? Not for me, thanks.

I know other companies that charge anywhere from $7,500 to $15,000 for these same services. Again, I’m sure you’d be happy with their work, but just look at the cost! Why would anyone pay all that money when you can have the same video clips on your website and online for a fraction of the cost?

If you choose to ignore the most cost-effective way to communicate with your potential clients, just think what doing nothing will accomplish: Your colleagues and competitors will continue to improve their search engine rankings; potential clients will probably pick up the phone and call your competitors instead of you; your website will become stale and not very interesting to a potential client with problems.

Putting video on your website is, in my opinion, the most cost-effective way to express yourself to anyone who comes to your website. Let potential clients see who you are, hear you talk, and learn how experienced you are in your field of law. Doing this will improve your search engine ranking, improve your visibility, and importantly, make you a ‘likeable’ expert in your field.

“OK, so what’s it going to cost to have you do my videos?”

I guarantee it will be a fraction of what the big web design companies are charging. Call me to discuss your needs.

How do I get in touch with you?
Simple. Call me at 516-487-8207, or send me an email: lawmed10@yahoo.com
I’d be happy to speak to you about your practice and how video can improve what you already have.

If you choose to go ahead with video on your website, I’ll send you an instruction sheet to let you know how to prepare for the video, as well as your wardrobe (you’re going to want to bring two extra shirts and two extra ties). I’ll explain why when we speak.

That’s it! I hope I’ve explained my services in sufficient detail. I hope you take advantage of my services to boost your exposure online and realize the incredible savings that I can offer.

I look forward to speaking with you soon.

Best regards,

Gerry,

http://www.oginski-law.com
http://nymedicalmalpractice.blogspot.com
http://medicalmalpracticetutorial.blogspot.com

The Law Office of Gerald M. Oginski, LLC
25 Great Neck Rd., Ste. 4
Great Neck, NY 11021
516-487-8207
email: lawmed10@yahoo.com